1. Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate to an organic light-emitting display and a method of compensating for degradation of the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
An organic light-emitting display, which is drawing attention as a next-generation display, includes a self-luminous element that emits light by itself. Thus, the organic light-emitting display has advantages of fast response speed, high emission efficiency, high luminance, and wide viewing angle. The organic light-emitting display includes an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) as the self-luminous element. The OLED includes an anode, a cathode, and an organic compound layer formed between the anode and the cathode. The organic compound layer includes a hole injection layer (HIL), a hole transport layer (HTL), an emission layer (EML), an electron transport layer (ETL), and an electron injection layer (EIL). When a driving voltage is applied to the anode and the cathode, holes passing through the HTL and electrons passing through the ETL may move to the EML to form excitons. As a result, the EML may emit visible light.
OLEDs are degraded over time, resulting in a reduction in display luminance. The degree of degradation of an OLED is affected by the brightness of an input image. An OLED that has displayed a lot of bright images is more degraded than an OLED that has displayed a lot of dark images. That is, OLEDs of a display panel are degraded to different degrees. Therefore, a technology for ensuring uniform display luminance on one screen by compensating luminance according to the degree of degradation of each OLED has been suggested. However, the conventional technology compensates luminance by increasing a current applied to an OLED in proportion to the degree of degradation of the OLED. This can impose more loads on a degraded area, thereby accelerating degradation speed. That is, since more current is supplied to a more degraded OLED, the degradation speed of the OLED can be accelerated, and the life of a display can be reduced.
In addition, degradation information of an OLED may not be detected linearly with emission luminance of the OLED. That is, even if a degraded OLED is compensated based on detected degradation information, an increase in luminance resulting from the compensation of the OLED may not be linear. Therefore, even if the degraded OLED is directly compensated for, there may still be a luminance difference with another adjacent pixel.